Pastoral Approach to Academic Pursuits

By focusing on understanding the individual needs of each of our students, we aim to encourage the very best levels of performance from each child. Unlocking the full potential of each student is the key and we follow a structured approach to achieve this.

We place a high premium on pastoral care in the classroom, around the School and in the boarding houses. Students in the Senior School are grouped into pastoral groups, called ‘Tutor groups’, the tutor being responsible for overseeing their tutees’ academic progress and pastoral welfare. Tutor groups are based around the 4 school Boarding Houses with two tutor groups of about 8 students in each Year group in each Boarding House. Tutors work closely with a highly experienced team of Boarding Houseparents and Assistant Houseparents who are also in regular contact with student’s academic teachers. In the Senior School class sizes are limited to 20 students, except for the top sets in English, Maths and Science which may be slightly largely to allow for slightly smaller lower sets.

The College this year sees a move to a maximum class size of 15 at AS level which will apply to A2 in future years. In reality, many classes are considerable smaller than this. St Andrew’s remains committed to offering a wide choice of subjects at A level.